Fixing California: Obama bribes schools to follow state law

On the cover of this week’s SD In Depth section, in the latest installment of our Fixing California series, former state Senate Majority Leader Gloria Romero explains how she went from union loyalist to union enemy because she challenged labor power plays in Sacramento — especially those involving public schools.

Last week, we saw a huge reminder of just what Romero, a Los Angeles Democrat, described. The federal government is essentially trying to bribe eight California school districts to get them to follow existing state law. The administration exempted Los Angeles, San Francisco, Sacramento, Oakland, Long Beach, Santa Ana, Fresno and Sanger school districts from federal penalties required by the No Child Left Behind law for not meeting minimum improvement standards established by the landmark 2002 federal legislation.

Given the importance President Obama and Education Secretary Arne Duncan have attached to steady student progress, why would they cut such a break for these districts — the first in the U.S. given such treatment?

Because the eight submitted proposals to the Education Department outlining how they intended to review student performance and factor it into teacher and principal evaluations. This gives the Obama administration what it has long sought: a beachhead for its education reform push in the nation’s largest state.

For two years, Gov. Jerry Brown and state Superintendent of Public Instruction Tom Torlakson have given the cold shoulder to this effort because of its emphasis on teacher quality and rooting out the 10 percent of teachers the president says have no business in the classroom. Like most local school districts — especially San Diego Unified — Brown and Torlakson are reluctant to cross the California Teachers Association or the California Federation of Teachers. They talk nobly about the importance of public education. Yet they use their power in defense of a school system in which the interests of adult employees trump the needs of students.

But what is particularly absurd about the teacher-performance issue is that it doesn’t just reflect Democrats Brown and Torlakson differing with the president, the most prominent Democrat of all. It reflects Brown’s and Torlakson’s tacit willingness to go along with local school districts’ refusal to enforce state law — specifically, a 1971 measure that requires student performance be a factor in teacher evaluations. So what we’re seeing is the federal government trying to use a carrot-and-stick approach to get California to enforce its own law.

But it’s what Brown and Torlakson do: protect teachers — good, bad or horrible. As Romero writes, “California’s teachers are among the highest-paid in the nation; yet there is little accountability for student achievement or teacher performance. Tenure and seniority are protected. Laws make it almost impossible to fire teachers for incompetence or misconduct.”

We stand with Obama and Romero in opposing this status quo. With or without federal bribes, school districts in California should follow the law and factor student performance into teacher evaluations.